Techniques for providing application contextual information

ABSTRACT

Techniques for providing application contextual information. One or more sets of database context identifiers corresponding to events that occur within the database are generated by the database. The one or more sets of database context identifiers have at least one application context field. A session identifier corresponding to a session to be monitored is sent from the application to the database. Information to be stored in the database with the session identifier is sent to the database. Database logs and application logs are correlated using at least the session identifier.

TECHNICAL FIELD

Embodiments relate to diagnostics and monitoring within a databaseenvironment. More particularly, embodiments relate to providingapplication context information that can be used for diagnostics andmonitoring purposes within the database environment.

BACKGROUND

Databases are utilized to store data for many different types and sizesof organizations. In the more sophisticated organizations, variousapplications can access the database. As the number and/or type ofapplications that access a database increase, so does the usefulness ofmonitoring and diagnostic functionality.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Embodiments of the invention are illustrated by way of example, and notby way of limitation, in the figures of the accompanying drawings inwhich like reference numerals refer to similar elements.

FIG. 1 is a conceptual illustration of one embodiment of a set ofcontext identifiers that can be utilized for monitoring and/ordiagnostics purposes.

FIG. 2 is an example of an environment configured for a user session inwhich the user's device is configured to communicate with a complexsolution made of various products and components that can be from manyvendors and utilize many protocols.

FIG. 3 is an example of an environment configured for the user sessionas in FIG. 2, but with components providing less than optimalperformance.

FIG. 4 is a conceptual illustration of exchange of context informationbetween an app server and a database.

FIG. 5 is an example session utilizing context information and a sessionuniversal unique identifier (UUID).

FIG. 6 is a conceptual illustration of one embodiment of a technique forencapsulating distributed diagnostic information.

FIG. 7 is a conceptual illustration of one embodiment of encapsulatederror messaging.

FIG. 8 is a conceptual illustration of one embodiment of a technique forencapsulating time utilization information.

FIG. 9 illustrates a block diagram of an environment where an on-demanddatabase service might be used.

FIG. 10 illustrates a block diagram of an environment where an on-demanddatabase service might be used.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the following description, numerous specific details are set forth.However, embodiments of the invention may be practiced without thesespecific details. In other instances, well-known structures andtechniques have not been shown in detail in order not to obscure theunderstanding of this description.

In the description that follows, various techniques and mechanisms areprovided to utilize application context information to provide thedatabase environment (e.g., DBMS, database server) with diagnosticinformation (e.g., trap files, diagnostic logs) and monitoringinformation (e.g., per-organization statistics, per-page-URIstatistics). In one embodiment, these per-application contextualstatistics/information can be provided via per-statement statisticsfunctionality.

In the embodiments described below, mechanisms are provided that canaccept an arbitrary set of solution and session context identifiersbetween components within an environment. These context identifiers canbe include in diagnostic and/or monitoring features and/or files. In oneembodiment, this can provide tracking of time within each component of asolution and encapsulating information about time spent at lower levelswithin the environment. In one embodiment, this can provide inclusionand/or encapsulation of lower-level error details (further encapsulatederrors) within an error report sent to a higher-level component.

In one embodiment, each encapsulation can include enough context toidentify the component in a solution (e.g. the role of the software,it's logical and possibly physical location in the data center). In oneembodiment, logging or otherwise capturing time-spent stacks (for errorand success outcomes) and error stacks (for error/failure outcomes) canbe provided at the top of the stack.

FIG. 1 is a conceptual illustration of one embodiment of a set ofcontext identifiers that can be utilized for monitoring and/ordiagnostics purposes. In one embodiment, set of contextidentifiers/fields/files can be utilized to provide application contextinformation to be utilized in monitoring and/or diagnostic operations.

In the example of FIG. 1, database set of context identifiers 100includes several fields related to database functionality, for example,Request ID, Thread ID, User ID, etc. In one embodiment, selected fieldsfrom database set of context identifiers 100 are stored in a diagnosticlog. In one embodiment, data from Thread ID field 110 in the set ofcontext identifiers can also be stored as a process identifier in thediagnostic log. In one embodiment, data from Application IP address/portfield 120 in database set of context identifiers 100 can also be storedin the diagnostic log. In one embodiment, application name 180 indatabase set of context identifiers 100 can also be store clientapplication name 180.

While these are a few examples of the information available via databaseset of context identifiers 100 to be utilized in the diagnostic log,additional and/or different information can also be utilized. Forexample, if the host computing environment includes an applicationexchange/store where applications can be provided to various users, forexample, from a third party.

The description that follows provides various embodiments in which thelog mechanisms described above can be utilized to pass informationbetween applications and databases. The techniques and architecturesdescribed herein are particularly useful in session-based environmentsin which connections between devices are temporary and can be complex.

FIG. 2 is an example of an environment configured for a user session inwhich the user's device is configured to communicate with a complexsolution made of various products and components that can be from manyvendors and utilize many protocols. In the example of FIG. 2, user 205utilizes user device 210 to access one or more resources withinenvironment 220, which can include any number of components and/ordevices. Environment 220 can be, for example, an on-demand servicesenvironment, which can include one or more multitenant databases.

The techniques and architectures described herein are useful, forexample, for performance tracking/evaluation and for errortracking/evaluation. The configuration of nodes and components istemporary. If, for example, a user experiences an error condition, sometime will pass before that error information can be passed to systemadministrators (or others) who are assigned to correct the errorcondition. During this time environment 220 may change, which may makeit difficult or impossible for the administrators to determine the causeof the error. As another example, a user may realize that environment220 was operating more slowly that usual at some point in the past. Ifanything within environment 220 has changed, it may be impossible todetermine the cause of the slowness.

In the example of FIG. 2, user 205 uses electronic device 210 to accessenvironment 220. Electronic device 210 can be any type of device thatallows user 205 to access environment 220. For example, electronicdevice 210 can be a laptop computer, a desktop computer, a tablet, asmartphone, a wearable computing device, etc. In one embodiment,electronic device 210 accesses environment 220 via a network (e.g., theInternet).

Environment 220 can include any number and type of components/node, buta few specific nodes are described for illustrative purposes. Theseexamples are not intended to be limiting. In the example of FIG. 2,electronic device communicates with application server 280, which mayprovide access to other nodes (e.g., 285, 290). These nodes may providethe desired services, or may further interact with one or moreadditional nodes (e.g., database node 240 and storage node 245,authentication node 250, domain name server 255). In the example of FIG.2, all of the nodes are within environment 220; however, one or morenodes may be outside of environment 220 (e.g. database node 295), butthe information available about those nodes may be limited.

FIG. 3 is an example of an environment configured for the user sessionas in FIG. 2, but with components providing less than optimalperformance. As mentioned in the discussion of FIG. 2, user 205 may haveexperienced less than optimal performance from environment 220. In orderto determine the cause of the sub-optimal performance and correct thecondition, contextual information shared between components ofenvironment 220 can be used.

In the example of FIG. 3, the connection between node 285 and node 350was slow during the time in question. Also, node 370 was not functioningproperly while interacting with node 360 during the time in question.Using traditional techniques, experts or specialists would be consultedfor each node being evaluated. This is a time consuming and inefficientoption. Described herein are techniques to pass down (and possibly up)correlation tokens and/or context identifiers that can be used to passcontext, error and/or time-spent statistical information between nodes.These techniques can provide quick (possibly immediate) answers toperformance conditions.

Using traditional techniques and tools there are several challenges. Forexample, different formats and context schemes make logging difficult.Proper correlation may be difficult or impossible. Some nodes mayproduce too much data for trace/logging tools. In various embodimentsdescribed herein, a common format, common schema and/or log/trace parsercan be provided. Various embodiments can also provide formal correlationmechanisms.

FIG. 4 is a conceptual illustration of exchange of context informationbetween an app server and a database. While the example of FIG. 4illustrates an app server communicating with a database, any type ofnode (e.g., as illustrated in FIG. 1 and/or FIG. 2) can be supported.Further, any number of nodes can also be supported. Embodiments forhierarchical structures are described in greater detail below.

In the example of FIG. 4, context information can be used to determine,for example, which database session is not behaving correctly. Asanother example, the context information can be used to determine whichtest/tenant/page/etc. is causing problems with the database. The contextinformation described herein can be used to determine the cause of awide range of conditions.

In one embodiment, app server 410 (or any other type of environmentnode) can provide app context 420 to database 460 (or any other type ofenvironment node) as part of a transaction between app server 410 anddatabase 460. In one embodiment, app context 420 includes a tenantidentifier (tenantID), a user identifier (userID), a thread identifier(threadlD), a thread name (ThreadName) and a page universal resourceindicator (URI) for a page used to make the request associated with thetransaction. In alternate embodiments, other and/or differentinformation can be included in app context 420. App context 480 providesan example app context that can be used.

Similarly, database 460 provides database context information 430 forcommunications to app server 410. In one embodiment, database context430 includes a process identifier (pid) and a time stamp. In alternateembodiments, other and/or different information can be included indatabase context 430.

FIG. 5 is an example session utilizing context information and a sessionuniversal unique identifier (UUID). In one embodiment, eachsession/request message includes session UUID 510 and UUID 510 isfurther included in transactions between nodes. By including the sessionUUID in all logs/traces, the context information can be more effectivelycorrelated.

FIG. 6 is a conceptual illustration of one embodiment of a technique forencapsulating distributed diagnostic information. In one embodiment,each component (e.g., 610, 620, 630, 640) passes down a globalcorrelation UUID (see, for example, FIG. 5) and relevant contextidentifiers (see, for example, FIG. 4). In one embodiment, eachcomponent passes up error information (see, for example, FIG. 7) and/ortime-spent statistical information (see, for example, FIG. 8).

In one embodiment, each component includes the correlation UUID andcontext identifiers from the calling component in its logs/trace/etc. Inone embodiment, top components include the full chain oferrors/statistics in its log/trace/etc. per request/session.

FIG. 7 is a conceptual illustration of one embodiment of encapsulatederror messaging. With the global UUID, timestamp and contextidentifiers, the relevant trace/log files can be identified as well asrelevant records. In one embodiment, as illustrated in FIG. 7, each nodecan encapsulate lower level error information with its own errorinformation to be passed back up. At any point (or in multiple points)in the process described with respect to FIG. 7, encapsulated errorinformation can be included in an error log 790.

In the example of FIG. 7, node 750 experiences a write error. A writeerror message (e.g., “write error for/data/stuff”) 791 can be passed tonode 740. Node 740 can encapsulate the error message 791 with its ownerror message (e.g., “could not write block to store node) 792 to bepassed to node 730. Node 730 can encapsulate error message 791 and errormessage 792 with its own error message (e.g., “insert error for tablefoo”) 793 to be passed to node 720.

Node 720 can encapsulate error message 791, error message 792 and errormessage 793 with its own error message (e.g., “could not add newcontact”) 794 to be passed to node 710. Node 710 can encapsulate errormessage 791, error message 792, error message 793 and error message 794with its own error message (e.g., “Please report this request ID:<request ID>”) 795 to be displayed by electronic device 210 and/orstored in log 780. Thus, the final error message includes the chain oferrors for all affected components.

FIG. 8 is a conceptual illustration of one embodiment of a technique forencapsulating time utilization information. The example of FIG. 8utilizes the techniques discussed above to pass encapsulated time-spentstatistics. Time-spent statistics for each component can provide acomplete solution level view of time spend including, for example,time-spent on each network hop. At any point (or in multiple points) inthe process described with respect to FIG. 8, encapsulated timeutilization information can be included in an error (or other type of)log 890.

In the example of FIG. 8, node 850 can gather time-spent information foractivities performed on node 850 corresponding to a session/request.This time-spent information can be for one or more categories ofactivities (e.g., network hops, memory/disk accesses, processor time,wait time). Time-spent information 891 can be passed to node 840. Node840 can encapsulate the time-spent information 891 with its owntime-spent information 892 to be passed to node 830. Node 830 canencapsulate lower level time-spent information with its own time-spentinformation 893 to be passed to node 820.

Node 820 can encapsulate lower level time-spent information with its owntime-spent information 894 to be passed to node 810. Node 810 canencapsulate lower level time-spent information with its own time-spentinformation 895 to be displayed by electronic device 210 and/or storedin log 880. Thus, the final time-spent includes the time-spentinformation for all components.

In one embodiment, with minimum participation from the nodes, each nodereturns time spent within the node and on the network. In oneembodiment, with full leaf participation, each node returns broken downtime spent within the node, time spent on the network and time spent forexternal dependencies (e.g., input/output activity, DNS activity). Inone embodiment, with full branch participation, each node returns brokendown time spent within the node, time spent on the network, time spentfor external dependencies and encapsulated (and aggregated) statisticsfrom all participating components.

FIG. 9 illustrates a block diagram of an environment 910 wherein anon-demand database service might be used. Environment 910 may includeuser systems 912, network 914, system 916, processor system 917,application platform 918, network interface 920, tenant data storage922, system data storage 924, program code 926, and process space 928.In other embodiments, environment 910 may not have all of the componentslisted and/or may have other elements instead of, or in addition to,those listed above.

Environment 910 is an environment in which an on-demand database serviceexists. User system 912 may be any machine or system that is used by auser to access a database user system. For example, any of user systems912 can be a handheld computing device, a mobile phone, a laptopcomputer, a work station, and/or a network of computing devices. Asillustrated in herein FIG. 9 (and in more detail in FIG. 10) usersystems 912 might interact via a network 914 with an on-demand databaseservice, which is system 916.

An on-demand database service, such as system 916, is a database systemthat is made available to outside users that do not need to necessarilybe concerned with building and/or maintaining the database system, butinstead may be available for their use when the users need the databasesystem (e.g., on the demand of the users). Some on-demand databaseservices may store information from one or more tenants stored intotables of a common database image to form a multi-tenant database system(MTS). Accordingly, “on-demand database service 916” and “system 916”will be used interchangeably herein. A database image may include one ormore database objects. A relational database management system (RDMS) orthe equivalent may execute storage and retrieval of information againstthe database object(s). Application platform 918 may be a framework thatallows the applications of system 916 to run, such as the hardwareand/or software, e.g., the operating system. In an embodiment, on-demanddatabase service 916 may include an application platform 918 thatenables creation, managing and executing one or more applicationsdeveloped by the provider of the on-demand database service, usersaccessing the on-demand database service via user systems 912, or thirdparty application developers accessing the on-demand database servicevia user systems 912.

The users of user systems 912 may differ in their respective capacities,and the capacity of a particular user system 912 might be entirelydetermined by permissions (permission levels) for the current user. Forexample, where a salesperson is using a particular user system 912 tointeract with system 916, that user system has the capacities allottedto that salesperson. However, while an administrator is using that usersystem to interact with system 916, that user system has the capacitiesallotted to that administrator. In systems with a hierarchical rolemodel, users at one permission level may have access to applications,data, and database information accessible by a lower permission leveluser, but may not have access to certain applications, databaseinformation, and data accessible by a user at a higher permission level.Thus, different users will have different capabilities with regard toaccessing and modifying application and database information, dependingon a user's security or permission level.

Network 914 is any network or combination of networks of devices thatcommunicate with one another. For example, network 914 can be any one orany combination of a LAN (local area network), WAN (wide area network),telephone network, wireless network, point-to-point network, starnetwork, token ring network, hub network, or other appropriateconfiguration. As the most common type of computer network in currentuse is a TCP/IP (Transfer Control Protocol and Internet Protocol)network, such as the global internetwork of networks often referred toas the “Internet” with a capital “I,” that network will be used in manyof the examples herein. However, it should be understood that thenetworks that one or more implementations might use are not so limited,although TCP/IP is a frequently implemented protocol.

User systems 912 might communicate with system 916 using TCP/IP and, ata higher network level, use other common Internet protocols tocommunicate, such as HTTP, FTP, AFS, WAP, etc. In an example where HTTPis used, user system 912 might include an HTTP client commonly referredto as a “browser” for sending and receiving HTTP messages to and from anHTTP server at system 916. Such an HTTP server might be implemented asthe sole network interface between system 916 and network 914, but othertechniques might be used as well or instead. In some implementations,the interface between system 916 and network 914 includes load sharingfunctionality, such as round-robin HTTP request distributors to balanceloads and distribute incoming HTTP requests evenly over a plurality ofservers. At least as for the users that are accessing that server, eachof the plurality of servers has access to the MTS' data; however, otheralternative configurations may be used instead.

In one embodiment, system 916, shown in FIG. 9, implements a web-basedcustomer relationship management (CRM) system. For example, in oneembodiment, system 916 includes application servers configured toimplement and execute CRM software applications as well as providerelated data, code, forms, webpages and other information to and fromuser systems 912 and to store to, and retrieve from, a database systemrelated data, objects, and Webpage content. With a multi-tenant system,data for multiple tenants may be stored in the same physical databaseobject, however, tenant data typically is arranged so that data of onetenant is kept logically separate from that of other tenants so that onetenant does not have access to another tenant's data, unless such datais expressly shared. In certain embodiments, system 916 implementsapplications other than, or in addition to, a CRM application. Forexample, system 916 may provide tenant access to multiple hosted(standard and custom) applications, including a CRM application. User(or third party developer) applications, which may or may not includeCRM, may be supported by the application platform 918, which managescreation, storage of the applications into one or more database objectsand executing of the applications in a virtual machine in the processspace of the system 916.

One arrangement for elements of system 916 is shown in FIG. 9, includinga network interface 920, application platform 918, tenant data storage922 for tenant data 923, system data storage 924 for system data 925accessible to system 916 and possibly multiple tenants, program code 926for implementing various functions of system 916, and a process space928 for executing MTS system processes and tenant-specific processes,such as running applications as part of an application hosting service.Additional processes that may execute on system 916 include databaseindexing processes.

Several elements in the system shown in FIG. 9 include conventional,well-known elements that are explained only briefly here. For example,each user system 912 could include a desktop personal computer,workstation, laptop, PDA, cell phone, or any wireless access protocol(WAP) enabled device or any other computing device capable ofinterfacing directly or indirectly to the Internet or other networkconnection. User system 912 typically runs an HTTP client, e.g., abrowsing program, such as Edge from Microsoft, Safari from Apple, Chromefrom Google, or a WAP-enabled browser in the case of a cell phone, PDAor other wireless device, or the like, allowing a user (e.g., subscriberof the multi-tenant database system) of user system 912 to access,process and view information, pages and applications available to itfrom system 916 over network 914. Each user system 912 also typicallyincludes one or more user interface devices, such as a keyboard, amouse, touch pad, touch screen, pen or the like, for interacting with agraphical user interface (GUI) provided by the browser on a display(e.g., a monitor screen, LCD display, etc.) in conjunction with pages,forms, applications and other information provided by system 916 orother systems or servers. For example, the user interface device can beused to access data and applications hosted by system 916, and toperform searches on stored data, and otherwise allow a user to interactwith various GUI pages that may be presented to a user. As discussedabove, embodiments are suitable for use with the Internet, which refersto a specific global internetwork of networks. However, it should beunderstood that other networks can be used instead of the Internet, suchas an intranet, an extranet, a virtual private network (VPN), anon-TCP/IP based network, any LAN or WAN or the like.

According to one embodiment, each user system 912 and all of itscomponents are operator configurable using applications, such as abrowser, including computer code run using a central processing unitsuch as an Intel Core series processor or the like. Similarly, system916 (and additional instances of an MTS, where more than one is present)and all of their components might be operator configurable usingapplication(s) including computer code to run using a central processingunit such as processor system 917, which may include an Intel Coreseries processor or the like, and/or multiple processor units. Acomputer program product embodiment includes a machine-readable storagemedium (media) having instructions stored thereon/in which can be usedto program a computer to perform any of the processes of the embodimentsdescribed herein. Computer code for operating and configuring system 916to intercommunicate and to process webpages, applications and other dataand media content as described herein are preferably downloaded andstored on a hard disk, but the entire program code, or portions thereof,may also be stored in any other volatile or non-volatile memory mediumor device as is well known, such as a ROM or RAM, or provided on anymedia capable of storing program code, such as any type of rotatingmedia including floppy disks, optical discs, digital versatile disk(DVD), compact disk (CD), microdrive, and magneto-optical disks, andmagnetic or optical cards, nanosystems (including molecular memory ICs),or any type of media or device suitable for storing instructions and/ordata. Additionally, the entire program code, or portions thereof, may betransmitted and downloaded from a software source over a transmissionmedium, e.g., over the Internet, or from another server, as is wellknown, or transmitted over any other conventional network connection asis well known (e.g., extranet, VPN, LAN, etc.) using any communicationmedium and protocols (e.g., TCP/IP, HTTP, HTTPS, Ethernet, etc.) as arewell known. It will also be appreciated that computer code forimplementing embodiments can be implemented in any programming languagethat can be executed on a client system and/or server or server systemsuch as, for example, C, C++, HTML, any other markup language, Java™,JavaScript, ActiveX, any other scripting language, such as VBScript, andmany other programming languages as are well known may be used. (Java™is a trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc.).

According to one embodiment, each system 916 is configured to providewebpages, forms, applications, data and media content to user (client)systems 912 to support the access by user systems 912 as tenants ofsystem 916. As such, system 916 provides security mechanisms to keepeach tenant's data separate unless the data is shared. If more than oneMTS is used, they may be located in close proximity to one another(e.g., in a server farm located in a single building or campus), or theymay be distributed at locations remote from one another (e.g., one ormore servers located in city A and one or more servers located in cityB). As used herein, each MTS could include one or more logically and/orphysically connected servers distributed locally or across one or moregeographic locations. Additionally, the term “server” is meant toinclude a computer system, including processing hardware and processspace(s), and an associated storage system and database application(e.g., OODBMS or RDBMS) as is well known in the art. It should also beunderstood that “server system” and “server” are often usedinterchangeably herein. Similarly, the database object described hereincan be implemented as single databases, a distributed database, acollection of distributed databases, a database with redundant online oroffline backups or other redundancies, etc., and might include adistributed database or storage network and associated processingintelligence.

FIG. 10 also illustrates environment 910. However, in FIG. 10 elementsof system 916 and various interconnections in an embodiment are furtherillustrated. FIG. 10 shows that user system 912 may include processorsystem 912A, memory system 912B, input system 912C, and output system912D. FIG. 10 shows network 914 and system 916. FIG. 10 also shows thatsystem 916 may include tenant data storage 922, tenant data 923, systemdata storage 924, system data 925, User Interface (UI) 1030, ApplicationProgram Interface (API) 1032, PL/SOQL 1034, save routines 1036,application setup mechanism 1038, applications servers 1000 ₁-1000 _(N),system process space 1002, tenant process spaces 1004, tenant managementprocess space 1010, tenant storage area 1012, user storage 1014, andapplication metadata 1016. In other embodiments, environment 910 may nothave the same elements as those listed above and/or may have otherelements instead of, or in addition to, those listed above.

User system 912, network 914, system 916, tenant data storage 922, andsystem data storage 924 were discussed above in FIG. 9. Regarding usersystem 912, processor system 912A may be any combination of one or moreprocessors. Memory system 912B may be any combination of one or morememory devices, short term, and/or long term memory. Input system 912Cmay be any combination of input devices, such as one or more keyboards,mice, trackballs, scanners, cameras, and/or interfaces to networks.Output system 912D may be any combination of output devices, such as oneor more monitors, printers, and/or interfaces to networks. As shown byFIG. 10, system 916 may include a network interface 920 (of FIG. 9)implemented as a set of HTTP application servers 1000, an applicationplatform 918, tenant data storage 922, and system data storage 924. Alsoshown is system process space 1002, including individual tenant processspaces 1004 and a tenant management process space 1010. Each applicationserver 1000 may be configured to tenant data storage 922 and the tenantdata 923 therein, and system data storage 924 and the system data 925therein to serve requests of user systems 912. The tenant data 923 mightbe divided into individual tenant storage areas 1012, which can beeither a physical arrangement and/or a logical arrangement of data.Within each tenant storage area 1012, user storage 1014 and applicationmetadata 1016 might be similarly allocated for each user. For example, acopy of a user's most recently used (MRU) items might be stored to userstorage 1014. Similarly, a copy of MRU items for an entire organizationthat is a tenant might be stored to tenant storage area 1012. A UI 1030provides a user interface and an API 1032 provides an applicationprogrammer interface to system 916 resident processes to users and/ordevelopers at user systems 912. The tenant data and the system data maybe stored in various databases, such as one or more Oracle™ databases.

Application platform 918 includes an application setup mechanism 1038that supports application developers' creation and management ofapplications, which may be saved as metadata into tenant data storage922 by save routines 1036 for execution by subscribers as one or moretenant process spaces 1004 managed by tenant management process 1010 forexample. Invocations to such applications may be coded using PL/SOQL1034 that provides a programming language style interface extension toAPI 1032. A detailed description of some PL/SOQL language embodiments isdiscussed in commonly owned U.S. Pat. No. 7,730,478 entitled, “Methodand System for Allowing Access to Developed Applicants via aMulti-Tenant Database On-Demand Database Service”, issued Jun. 1, 2010to Craig Weissman, which is incorporated in its entirety herein for allpurposes. Invocations to applications may be detected by one or moresystem processes, which manage retrieving application metadata 1016 forthe subscriber making the invocation and executing the metadata as anapplication in a virtual machine.

Each application server 1000 may be communicably coupled to databasesystems, e.g., having access to system data 925 and tenant data 923, viaa different network connection. For example, one application server 1000₁ might be coupled via the network 914 (e.g., the Internet), anotherapplication server 1000 _(N-1) might be coupled via a direct networklink, and another application server 1000 _(N) might be coupled by yet adifferent network connection. Transfer Control Protocol and InternetProtocol (TCP/IP) are typical protocols for communicating betweenapplication servers 1000 and the database system. However, it will beapparent to one skilled in the art that other transport protocols may beused to optimize the system depending on the network interconnect used.

In certain embodiments, each application server 1000 is configured tohandle requests for any user associated with any organization that is atenant. Because it is desirable to be able to add and remove applicationservers from the server pool at any time for any reason, there ispreferably no server affinity for a user and/or organization to aspecific application server 1000. In one embodiment, therefore, aninterface system implementing a load balancing function (e.g., an F5BIG-IP load balancer) is communicably coupled between the applicationservers 1000 and the user systems 912 to distribute requests to theapplication servers 1000. In one embodiment, the load balancer uses aleast connections algorithm to route user requests to the applicationservers 1000. Other examples of load balancing algorithms, such as roundrobin and observed response time, also can be used. For example, incertain embodiments, three consecutive requests from the same user couldhit three different application servers 1000, and three requests fromdifferent users could hit the same application server 1000. In thismanner, system 916 is multi-tenant, wherein system 916 handles storageof, and access to, different objects, data and applications acrossdisparate users and organizations.

As an example of storage, one tenant might be a company that employs asales force where each salesperson uses system 916 to manage their salesprocess. Thus, a user might maintain contact data, leads data, customerfollow-up data, performance data, goals and progress data, etc., allapplicable to that user's personal sales process (e.g., in tenant datastorage 922). In an example of a MTS arrangement, since all of the dataand the applications to access, view, modify, report, transmit,calculate, etc., can be maintained and accessed by a user system havingnothing more than network access, the user can manage his or her salesefforts and cycles from any of many different user systems. For example,if a salesperson is visiting a customer and the customer has Internetaccess in their lobby, the salesperson can obtain critical updates as tothat customer while waiting for the customer to arrive in the lobby.

While each user's data might be separate from other users' dataregardless of the employers of each user, some data might beorganization-wide data shared or accessible by a plurality of users orall of the users for a given organization that is a tenant. Thus, theremight be some data structures managed by system 916 that are allocatedat the tenant level while other data structures might be managed at theuser level. Because an MTS might support multiple tenants includingpossible competitors, the MTS should have security protocols that keepdata, applications, and application use separate. Also, because manytenants may opt for access to an MTS rather than maintain their ownsystem, redundancy, up-time, and backup are additional functions thatmay be implemented in the MTS. In addition to user-specific data andtenant specific data, system 916 might also maintain system level datausable by multiple tenants or other data. Such system level data mightinclude industry reports, news, postings, and the like that are sharableamong tenants.

In certain embodiments, user systems 912 (which may be client systems)communicate with application servers 1000 to request and updatesystem-level and tenant-level data from system 916 that may requiresending one or more queries to tenant data storage 922 and/or systemdata storage 924. System 916 (e.g., an application server 1000 in system916) automatically generates one or more SQL statements (e.g., one ormore SQL queries) that are designed to access the desired information.System data storage 924 may generate query plans to access the requesteddata from the database.

Each database can generally be viewed as a collection of objects, suchas a set of logical tables, containing data fitted into predefinedcategories. A “table” is one representation of a data object, and may beused herein to simplify the conceptual description of objects and customobjects. It should be understood that “table” and “object” may be usedinterchangeably herein. Each table generally contains one or more datacategories logically arranged as columns or fields in a viewable schema.Each row or record of a table contains an instance of data for eachcategory defined by the fields. For example, a CRM database may includea table that describes a customer with fields for basic contactinformation such as name, address, phone number, fax number, etc.Another table might describe a purchase order, including fields forinformation such as customer, product, sale price, date, etc. In somemulti-tenant database systems, standard entity tables might be providedfor use by all tenants. For CRM database applications, such standardentities might include tables for Account, Contact, Lead, andOpportunity data, each containing pre-defined fields. It should beunderstood that the word “entity” may also be used interchangeablyherein with “object” and “table”.

In some multi-tenant database systems, tenants may be allowed to createand store custom objects, or they may be allowed to customize standardentities or objects, for example by creating custom fields for standardobjects, including custom index fields. U.S. patent application Ser. No.10/817,161, filed Apr. 2, 2004, entitled “Custom Entities and Fields ina Multi-Tenant Database System”, and which is hereby incorporated hereinby reference, teaches systems and methods for creating custom objects aswell as customizing standard objects in a multi-tenant database system.In certain embodiments, for example, all custom entity data rows arestored in a single multi-tenant physical table, which may containmultiple logical tables per organization. It is transparent to customersthat their multiple “tables” are in fact stored in one large table orthat their data may be stored in the same table as the data of othercustomers.

Reference in the specification to “one embodiment” or “an embodiment”means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic describedin connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodimentof the invention. The appearances of the phrase “in one embodiment” invarious places in the specification are not necessarily all referring tothe same embodiment.

While the invention has been described in terms of several embodiments,those skilled in the art will recognize that the invention is notlimited to the embodiments described, but can be practiced withmodification and alteration within the spirit and scope of the appendedclaims. The description is thus to be regarded as illustrative insteadof limiting.

What is claimed is:
 1. In an environment having at least one databaseand at least one application, a method comprising: generating, with thedatabase, one or more sets of database context identifiers correspondingto events that occur within the database, wherein the one or more setsof database context identifiers have at least one application contextfield; sending, from the database to the application, a sessionidentifier corresponding to a session to be monitored; sending, from theapplication to the database, information to be stored in the databasewith the session identifier, wherein the information comprises at leasttime spent in one or more components of the environment for eventscorresponding to the database context identifiers; correlating databaselogs and application logs using at least the session identifier, whereinthe database logs and the application logs indicate time spent in theone or more components for events corresponding to the sessionidentifier.
 2. The method of claim 1 wherein the correlating thedatabase logs and the application logs using at least session identifiercomprises at least sending an application stack from the application tothe database.
 3. The method of claim 2 wherein the correlating databaselogs and application logs using at least session identifier furthercomprises at least sending a stack trace from the database to theapplication.
 4. The method of claim 2 wherein the application stackfurther includes encapsulated diagnostic information from multiplelevels within the environment.
 5. The method of claim 2 wherein theapplication stack further includes encapsulated time-spent informationfrom multiple levels within the environment.
 6. The method of claim 1wherein the context identifiers provide context information to identifya logical positioning within the environment of a correspondingcomponent.
 7. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having storedthereon instructions that, when executed by one or more processors,cause the one or more processors, in an environment having at least onedatabase and at least one application, to: generate, with the database,one or more sets of database context identifiers corresponding to eventsthat occur within the database, wherein the one or more sets of databasecontext identifiers have at least one application context field; send,from the database to the application, a session identifier correspondingto a session to be monitored; send, from the application to thedatabase, information to be stored in the database with the sessionidentifier, wherein the information comprises at least time spent in oneor more components of the environment for events corresponding to thedatabase context identifiers; correlate database logs and applicationlogs using at least the session identifier, wherein the database logsand the application logs indicate time spent in the one or morecomponents for events corresponding to the session identifier.
 8. Thenon-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 7 wherein thecorrelating the database logs and the application logs using at leastsession identifier comprises at least sending an application stack fromthe application to the database.
 9. The non-transitory computer-readablemedium of claim 8 wherein the correlating database logs and applicationlogs using at least session identifier further comprises at leastsending a stack trace from the database to the application.
 10. Thenon-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 8 wherein theapplication stack further includes encapsulated diagnostic informationfrom multiple levels within the environment.
 11. The non-transitorycomputer-readable medium of claim 8 wherein the application stackfurther includes encapsulated time-spent information from multiplelevels within the environment.
 12. The non-transitory computer-readablemedium of claim 7 wherein the context identifiers provide contextinformation to identify a logical positioning within the environment ofa corresponding component.
 13. A system comprising: a physical memorydevice; one or more hardware processors coupled with the physical memorydevice, the one or more hardware processors configurable to generate,with the database, one or more sets of database context identifierscorresponding to events that occur within the database, wherein the oneor more sets of database context identifiers have at least oneapplication context field, to send, from the database to theapplication, a session identifier corresponding to a session to bemonitored, to send, from the application to the database, information tobe stored in the database with the session identifier, wherein theinformation comprises at least time spent in one or more components ofthe environment for events corresponding to the database contextidentifiers, to correlate database logs and application logs using atleast the session identifier, wherein the database logs and theapplication logs indicate time spent in the one or more components forevents corresponding to the session identifier.
 14. The system of claim13 wherein the correlating the database logs and the application logsusing at least session identifier comprises at least sending anapplication stack from the application to the database.
 15. The systemof claim 14 wherein the correlating database logs and application logsusing at least session identifier further comprises at least sending astack trace from the database to the application.
 16. The system ofclaim 14 wherein the application stack further includes encapsulateddiagnostic information from multiple levels within the environment. 17.The system of claim 14 wherein the application stack further includesencapsulated time-spent information from multiple levels within theenvironment.
 18. The system of claim 13 wherein the context identifiersprovide context information to identify a logical positioning within theenvironment of a corresponding component.